The Latest Patch 1.09 Update in Elden Ring

Following the exciting announcement of Shadow of the Erdtree DLC, FromSoftware delivered patch 1.09 with groundbreaking visual enhancements that dramatically transform the Elden Ring experience. This substantial update introduces ray tracing technology alongside extensive combat balance adjustments that reshape the game’s meta. The community response has been polarized, with players divided between celebrating the visual upgrades and criticizing the performance impact.

The patch delivers both welcome improvements and controversial changes that affect different playstyles. While some adjustments may temporarily weaken certain character builds, the core progression systems remain intact, allowing players to adapt their strategies accordingly.

Understanding these changes is crucial for optimizing your gameplay approach. This comprehensive guide breaks down every significant modification, providing actionable insights to help you navigate the updated Lands Between effectively.

Introduction of Ray Tracing

Elden Ring’s visual fidelity reaches unprecedented heights with the integration of ray tracing technology in patch 1.09. This long-awaited feature, initially discovered through data mining in October 2022, finally delivers cinematic lighting that revolutionizes environmental immersion.

Available exclusively on current-generation platforms including PC, Xbox Series X, and PlayStation 5, ray tracing fundamentally alters how light behaves throughout the game world. The technology creates realistic reflections, dynamic shadows, and natural lighting interactions that significantly enhance atmospheric depth.

What Is Ray Tracing?

Ray tracing represents a revolutionary rendering methodology that meticulously simulates physical light behavior within virtual environments. By calculating individual light ray paths as they interact with surfaces, materials, and atmospheric conditions, the technology generates photorealistic lighting scenarios. The implementation produces exceptionally smooth reflective surfaces, precisely calculated shadow boundaries, and texture details that respond authentically to lighting conditions.

Activating this feature requires navigating to Game Options within the settings menu, where players can toggle ray tracing functionality. However, enabling this resource-intensive feature demands substantial hardware capabilities to maintain acceptable performance levels.

Performance optimization tip: For PC players, consider adjusting DLSS or FSR settings to mitigate performance impacts while preserving visual quality.

The Downside of Ray Tracing

Despite the visual enhancements, ray tracing implementation in Elden Ring suffers from significant optimization challenges. Players across all supported platforms report dramatic frame rate reductions, with even top-tier hardware like RTX 4090 GPUs experiencing severe stuttering and performance drops to 30 FPS in demanding areas.

Xbox Series X users face particularly extreme performance degradation, with frame rates plummeting to unplayable 5 FPS levels in certain scenarios. Additional stability issues include random crashes during fast travel sequences, occurring even with ray tracing disabled. These technical problems highlight the importance of system optimization, similar to considerations in our Weapons Unlock guide for optimal gameplay experience.

Common mistake: Enabling ray tracing without verifying system capability often results in frustrating performance issues that detract from gameplay enjoyment.

Major PvP Balance Adjustments

Patch 1.09 introduces substantial PvP-specific balancing that targets previously dominant strategies. The Inescapable Frenzy incantation receives substantial improvements to both damage output and grab detection angles, while Lifesteal Fist gains enhanced power, extended range, and improved targeting acquisition.

Conversely, several popular damage amplification methods face significant reductions. Two-handed jumping attacks experience power decreases, alongside heavy and running attacks for Fist and Claw weapon categories. Foundational magic enhancements including Founding Rain of Stars and Terra Magica see diminished effectiveness.

Critical nerfs affect numerous talismans and skills that previously defined the PvP meta. Determination, Royal Knight’s Resolve, Claw Talisman, Lord of Blood’s Exultation, and Jellyfish Shield’s Contagious Fury all receive effectiveness reductions.

Equipment-based buffs also undergo adjustments, with White Mask headgear and Raptor’s Black Feathers armor providing reduced attack power and jump damage bonuses respectively.

Flask of Wondrous Physick damage enhancements for elemental types including Magic, Flame, Lightning, and Holy all experience diminished potency.

General Balance Adjustments

Beyond PvP-specific changes, patch 1.09 implements comprehensive weapon system improvements. Colosseum respawn mechanics now include brief invincibility periods, while weapon attribute scaling receives comprehensive improvements for Magic, Fire, Flame Art, Lightning, and Sacred infusions.

Multiple heavy weapon categories benefit from enhanced performance characteristics. Colossal Swords, Great Axes, Hammers, Flails, Great Hammers, and Colossal Weapons all receive improved attribute scaling.

Weapon speed and recovery time optimizations affect numerous weapon types. Great Hammers, Great Axes, Great Swords, and Curved Greatswords gain improved attack speed, extended range, and reduced recovery durations.

Running attacks receive universal speed improvements across Straight Swords, Twinblades, Curved Swords, Katanas, Axes, Hammers, and Halberds. Initial attack speed enhancements benefit Straight Swords, Curved Swords, and Whip weapons, while guard counter mechanics accelerate for Great Swords, Colossal Swords, and Great Curved Swords.

Whip weapons experience reduced attack recovery time, while Claw weapons deal increased damage. The Great Club receives Holy damage integration with Faith scaling capabilities.

Defensive mechanics undergo significant refinement with damage negation adjustments based on weapon affinity. Holy damage blocking receives particular emphasis with enhanced damage negation values.

The Twinblade Talisman receives effectiveness improvements, while rolling distance for light equipment loads undergoes slight reduction. Hitbox size adjustments affect specific attacks for Thrusting Swords, Heavy Thrusting Swords, Spears, Great Spears, and Halberds, creating more precise combat interactions.

AoE Adjustments

Ashes of War adjustments introduce substantial gameplay modifications that reward strategic adaptation.

For instance, Lifesteal Fist now features expanded target acquisition range, while Surge of Faith benefits from accelerated projectile generation.

Flame Spit and Tongues of Fire both receive defensive improvements including enhanced guard speed and increased blocking effectiveness.

The Great Oracular Bubble experiences projectile generation acceleration and recovery time reduction. Viper Bite enables quicker rolling recovery after skill activation, while Shriek of Milos delivers improved close-range poise damage.

Spearcall Ritual and Cursed-Blood Slash both benefit from faster projectile generation and reduced recovery periods.

Gold Breaker receives recovery time optimization, while I Command Thee, kneel! gains attack generation speed improvements.

Starcaller Cry features accelerated follow-up attack timing, and Spinning Wheel gains improved attack generation speed with roll and heavy attack cancellation capabilities during skill execution.

Has Patch 1.09 Update Nerfed Incantation and Sorcery Builds?

A critical unintended consequence of patch 1.09 severely impacts magic-focused character builds. This programming error prevents damage amplification effects from properly applying to sorceries and incantations, creating significant progression barriers during late-game content.

Testing reveals that Flame Sling incantation, which normally deals 308 base damage, should increase to 385 damage when enhanced by Howl of Shabriri’s 25% damage buff. However, in version 1.09, the buff fails to activate, resulting in the spell dealing only its base damage regardless of applied enhancements.

The problem extends beyond Flame Sling, affecting Golden Vow and numerous other damage-boosting incantations that previously provided reliable 15% damage increases.

While this bug might appear minor statistically, its cumulative effect dramatically reduces magic users’ combat effectiveness. In Elden Ring’s demanding combat scenarios, where precise damage calculations determine survival, this inconsistency creates substantial disadvantages.

Practical workaround: Magic users should temporarily prioritize melee combat strategies or utilize spells that don’t rely on damage amplification effects until FromSoftware addresses this issue.

Bug Fixes

Patch 1.09 delivers comprehensive technical corrections addressing numerous gameplay inconsistencies. Critical fixes resolve weapon scaling miscalculations and status effect application errors, including Scarlet Rot build-up miscalibrations when utilizing weapons with Blood or Cold affinity modifications.

The update specifically targets issues affecting weapon skill functionality, talisman effect miscalculations, and skill power reduction anomalies occurring under Golden Vow effect conditions.

Colosseum matchmaking receives stability enhancements alongside camera positioning corrections during respawn sequences.

Additional corrections address a problematic bug where players could incorrectly receive kill credit when succumbing to Death status effect.

Online multiplayer infrastructure undergoes optimization for improved connection reliability, addressing various performance-related concerns that previously affected cooperative and competitive gameplay. For more comprehensive gameplay guidance, explore our Complete Guide for strategic insights.

These technical improvements create a more stable foundation for future content, including the anticipated Shadow of the Erdtree expansion.

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